Starter Story - Our most read stories of the year

Hey,

This is Pat, founder of Starter Story — I wanted to give a warm welcome to the 217 people who joined us since our last newsletter. To anyone reading this, your support means a lot! I hope you enjoy reading our content as much as we enjoy creating it.

Three times per week, I write this email to share the lessons we learned after talking to successful founders around the world.

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Bye, 2022! I hope you had a great year and that 2023 will be even better for you. I wish you find success and happiness in everything you do. Here's to a bright and prosperous new year ahead!

And now, to this week's stories, enjoy!

Our most-read business case studies of the year

With 2022 coming to an end, I thought it’d be a good idea to highlight the 10 most popular stories of the year, according to Google Analytics numbers.

And what a lineup it turned out to be.

Whether you're an aspiring entrepreneur, a business owner looking to expand, or simply interested in learning more about the inner workings of successful companies, this list has something for you.

Ideas, strategies, frameworks, problem-solving... absorb their experiences and use them to your own benefit.

Very few people have access to these insights. Take advantage of it.

Let's dive right in:

👉 #1. I Created A $1.1M/Month Brand At 23 Years Old

This story was published in 2018 and, ever since, has been our most popular case study.

In the follow-up interview, they reported a $12M monthly revenue. Absolute madness.

How he came up with the idea, the product design, building a list of thousands of people, making $250K in sales on launch day,... everything about it is great.

👉 #2. How A 19-Year Old Started A $1M/Year Moving Company

What can you expect from someone who started a company at 13? Even if it was part-time, this guy had an advantage of years of experience vs. his peers of similar age.

To get it started, he approached 500 potential customers in person, which generated $30K in sales. And the whole process and strategy are documented.

👉 #3. Starting A Business And Making $600K In The First 8 Months

Fun fact: The movie War Dog is responsible for the existence of this company.

My favorite part about this case study is how the founder shares his list of criteria to pick the right business to start working on.

Doing your homework and working on some market research always pays off.

👉 #4. How I Built A $10K/Month Niche SEO Service

This a great example of how going super niche can be beneficial.

Marketing -> SEO -> Acquiring backlinks

Pick one metric you can help companies with –in this case, DR–, and go all in.

👉 #5. We Built A $1.2M/Year App For Tutors

One takeaway from this case study? If you need to develop an in-house tool, process, etc., to solve a problem because none of the existing solutions fit your needs… probably someone else might also be interested.

Today, this app has over 1M users. Seems like lots of people were experiencing the same pain.

Discover ideas that make money

There is no secret to building a profitable business. All of the systems and strategies can be learned, so why not learn them from others who have already done it?

Join Starter Story to access our database of 4,000+ business case studies. See the exact timelines of how founders took their businesses from idea to thousands of customers.

Get real answers to questions like:

👉 How do people find great business opportunities?

👉 What did they do to get their 10 first clients?

👉 What challenges do they face at every stage and how to overcome them?

Join Starter Story Premium for $2.58/week. A no-brainer investment for your business.

👉 #6. How A Teacher Started A $3K/Month Side Hustle

The biggest lesson this guy learned through starting a business:

“I was always nervous about starting a side hustle due to not thinking I was good enough at anything for people to spend money on whatever it was I was selling.”

Guess what? He’s sold everything he’s made.

So, stop thinking that what you do isn’t good enough. It’s just a matter of finding the right audience.

👉 #7. We Reached $25.6M In Revenue Last Year [With 11 Employees]

This company’s numbers are ridiculous:

$2.13M in monthly revenue
15M website visitors per month
2.6M email subscribers

If you’re looking to grow a content business, you must read this case study (and its updates).

👉 #8. How We Started A Camper Van Rental Business and Quit Our Full-Time Jobs

A super detailed story of a couple that started a side hustle and finally gained enough traction to allow them to ditch the cubicle and focus 100% on their dream business.

👉 #9. How I Started A Not Normal Tour Company [North Korea, Iraq, Antarctica]

A lesson on embracing uniqueness and not being afraid of being “weird” as a business.

There are thousands of travel agencies that can take you on a beach holiday but, how many can take you to North Korea? Not many. And those trips are not cheap at all.

Working with a company like this is a marketer’s dream. And they certainly took advantage of it.

👉 #10. How I Created The First Multi-Million Crime Scene Cleanup Business

Talking about unique businesses. Wow, this is a special one too.

And it got started by pure coincidence.

These founders offered to help a fellow church member whose husband had taken his life with a shotgun.

They learned the hard way that those clean-ups are not easy at all. And the Medical Examiners take the bodies away but leave a lot behind.

That’s how they realized they were onto a very lucrative business.